Friday, September 1, 2017

Russian parachute tank

Going forward with my love for funky 1 man tanks, today its a Russian parachute tank funky design which looks a bit like a shorted BT.
This is the info I found for it translated from a Russian source

The last name of the creator of this invention remains unknown, as does the precise date of its creation, but it can be narrowed down to around 1942-1943. This was a tank meant for airborne troops that could be dropped by parachute. The project was ahead of its time, as similar vehicles were built later.

The design was very well thought out and included calculations of the mass of the hull, components, assemblies, and armament. In addition to the weight of the vehicle, the size of the parachute was also calculated.

The proposed tank carried only one crewman. It would be equipped with a mass produced 100 hp M-11G engine, the same as the one used on the Po-2 airplane. The armament consisted of a 47 mm semiautomatic cannon and a DT machinegun. The armour was also reasonable: 30 mm in the front, 20 mm roof and sides, 10 mm floor, 25 mm rear. The total weight of the fully equipped tank, include the crewman, was around 2600 kg."Parachute tank"

This is 1 of the few 1 man tanks with anything more then a machine gun, this will overtax the single crew member even more then other design but giving the limits of aircraft loads there is not much choice. What the drawings does not make clear is how the power was going to the wheels, there is no real sprocket or a gearbox shown, this could be in other drawings or someway inside the suspension arms, which are big for just suspension arms and the front wheels does have something drawn there but I'm not sure what that would be and looks more a way to steer. A 100hp engine is a bit overkill for a 2600kg tank, half would do fine and save a lot of weight, I think the designer picked this because it was a aircraft engine and maybe that was good for a airborne tank, bit weird.

Drawing original posted by Yuri Pasholok

In my model I did change a few things
-changed the 47mm, which looks more like a French gun in the drawings then a Russian gun, to a 45mm gun, followed the45 mm tank gun model 1932 (20-K) design as that was the standard caliber of the time.
-added a view port in the front, simple design close to what was used on the T-60 and BA-64.
-added a engine hatch with a couple of bolts and a exhaust to the rear.
-not sure yet if I will add tracks, drawings does not show any, left off to save weight? But BT tracks would fit the looks of this little machine. The sides look a bit plain and not sure yet if I will add something there maybe tracks storage.

I did made a mistake with the MG but that is fixed now, changed it from a infantry DP MG to the tank MG the DT

For the model I started with a fast build 1/100 BT kit from Zvevda, it looked a lot like it but just smaller, plus the kit was really cheap so no worries if I cut it up and made mistakes, well that did not turn out well the wheels where much smaller then I needed them to be and the nose was more work to fix then just starting from scratch, so that is what I did, made myself a set of wheels close to the BT wheels just without the holes in the rubber, the hull is a simple box and was also pretty easy to make, gun barrel was made out of 3 pieces of round stock, I followed the dimensions of a metal barrel I had but as that had an extra step, armored sleeve, it was of no use for me.

EDIT: Yuri saw my post on FB and posted more info including a drawing with measurements and as I geusstomedeted my size it a bit off, height and width are pretty close less then 0,5mm off but the length is off by more mostly in the nose mine is too pointy, more over at his blog
https://yuripasholok.livejournal.com/9361162.html
Thanks for watching and feel free to comment
Greetings Mondria

Welcome to Midnight Greys.

Welcome to Midnight GreysHere I will post my own sculpting work and scratched build models and also the progress of commission work.Who I'm I then, well I'm Patrick Mondria, sculptor and master model maker from The Netherlands.1/72 is my favorite scale and all figures shown are 1/72 unless stated otherwise.Feel free to comment and hopefully have a good time hereMondriaEmail: p.mondria@gmail.com